Mid Day 4

The first two visits today have been pretty good, Stephanie has been awake and alert and very communicative. The respiratory people taught her how to suction out her mouth, but she still needs help when she coughs stuff up through the trach. She continues to look better every time we see her, although as she coughs it obviously hurts so much it's hard to watch, but it will help her out in the long run. We saw Dr. Kaplan today, he is impressed with the health of the flap, he says the sound of it couldn't be any better. He also ordered her a pain pump so that she can give herself her own morphine and not have to flag down the nurse when she is in pain. He is worried about her elevated heart rate and fever, he doesn't think the fever is from an infection anywhere they were because the neck incision looks very good, but it's slightly worrisome to not know where the infection that's causing the fever is. He's asked an infectious disease doctor to come take a look at her and possibly suggest a different broad spectrum antibiotic. Dr. Pou and Dr. Burke will be by later and they will determine whether or not to give Stephanie her own room, Dr. Kaplan's vote is to leave her in ICU until the heart rate and fever comes down. The most recent nurse leaves a little to be desired (at least while we are present) and Stephanie doesn't appear too impressed with her either. The previous three nurses have all been excellent though.

This waiting room is probably one of the most depressing places in the hospital though. There has been at least once when they had to delay the visits for the people in the cardiac unit because they were resuscitating someone. Shortly after I overheard that I heard them call a family up to the desk, and all I could think of was how awful it would be if it was their family member having trouble. I also am hearing about a lady's husband that had a pretty bad motorcycle accident and has sever head trauma. It's tough to wait here and only get to see Steph for four hours every day, especially days like yesterday when she was asleep for 3 and 3/4 of the time.